Drinkdrank

03/05/2019

I find this line from an ad in the Baltimore Sun in 1843 interesting"...and Albany Ale, equal (he thinks) to Scotch..."

Many of the early Albany Ale producers were Scots—Dunlop, Ballantine, Boyd, McKnight—and I've always suspected that Albany Ale may have been similar to the strong beers made in Scotland around the same time. Sixty years later, Albany's Amsdell Brewing & Malting Co. was still marketing a beer they dubbed "Scotch".

03/05/2019

Submitted for your approval: The first is a stanza from the 1866 poem, “A Runlet of Ale” by Barry Gray, which appeared in the John Taylor dedicated (and Taylor family funded) book “Ale in Prose and Verse”. The second is an ad from the December 18, 1865 “Charleston (South Carolina) Daily News. Such is the continuing, and confusing, conflation, of 19th century beery advertising lingo.

03/05/2019

I’ve yet to come across Albany Ale advertised for sale in a UK newspaper ad. This is as close as I’ve gotten: an article from Britain’s “Manchester Guardian” mentioning it (albeit in reference to New York City).

03/05/2019

You've got to give credit where credit is due, and this whole Albany Ale Project thing was a result of Alan McLeod coming across a newspaper ad for Albany Ale for sale in Newfoundland.

That being said, I'm not sure we've ever come across and ad for Albany Ale being made IN Canada (or anywhere else outside the Hudson valley, for that matter.) Until now.

From the Buffalo Whig and Journal, April 8, 1834.

03/04/2019

An overseer and twelve men? That's not very beery. That is unless the two men you're applying to are Messrs. Grieve & Moffat.

Walter Grieve and John Moffat were late 18th century land agents for the Phelps-Gotham purchase. Based out of Geneva NY, the duo opened a brewery, but eventually went their separate ways by the beginning of the new century. Grieve stayed in Geneva and brewed for a short while, becoming one of the town's leading merchants and civic leaders—he even commanded an artillery unit in the War of 1812. Moffat moved on, but also continued brewing.

By he second decade of the 19th century Moffat had moved to Schenectady, NY, and established another brewery (and candle factory), in the old Dutch town with his new partner Henry Topping. By the early 1830s however, he and his son James, had "shuffled off to Buffalo", and opened one of that village’s first breweries—hoping to capitalize on the Erie Canal and the prosperity that it promised. And capitalize they did. The brewery established by the Moffats in Buffalo operated for another 100 years in the Nickel City.

02/28/2019

More trolling produced an article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune from July 29th, 1847. The article is a comparison of the differences and similarities of living in England and the United Sates. In the article the author mentions the wide variety of beer available in England—but also states: “I have seen Albany pale ale and Philadelphia ale advertised”.

02/28/2019

I did a little data trolling on Newspapers.com tonight. Looking at the aggregate, rather than specific papers or ads, there’s some interesting things to see.

Regardless of the numbers of papers available on the site, it’s clear that Albany Ale was fairly common in the south, and specifically during the antebellum period. Of the roughly 3,500 hits from 1800 to 1900 (with New York papers eliminated) for “Albany Ale”, “Albany Cream Ale”, “Albany Double Ale” and “Albany XX Ale”, seven out of the top 10 returns were from southern states. Louisiana showed the most hits in the database (94) as well as the earliest (of the southern states) mention, in the Louisiana Gazette in 1819.

Pennsylvania, is the first northern state on the list and it ranked fourth behind Mississippi and North Carolina. Connecticut missed the top 10 by one, but the Hartford Courant’s April 30, 1806 edition boasts the earliest mention of Albany Ale outside of New York.

02/27/2019

This might be the nicest ad I’ve seen for Albany Ale—although the ad isn’t really all that much about Albany Ale. It’s really advertising something more like a proto-IPA—a beer brewed for warmer weather—or maybe It was IPA, they just didn’t call it IPA!

Of course it could also be something totally different!

In any case H/T to Gregory Scott for the find!

02/15/2019

Very cool historic beer connection from Schoharie County’s Serious Brewing Co., via Los Angeles!

Ahoy, beer lovers: A bottle from a 133-year-old shipwreck may yield yeast for a new brew in upstate New York. Biotechnology students at the State University of New York at Cobleskill uncorked a bottle from the shipwrecked SS Oregon on Thursday. Serious Brewing Company of Howes Cave plans to develop....

02/13/2019

For what it’s worth, now would be s good time to start a magazine that highlights the beer and brewing scene in the Great Lakes region. I’ve got a feeling there’s going to be a void that’ll need filling soon.